Ideas and American Foreign Policy
Fall 2010
Professor Andrew J. Bacevich
bacevich@bu.edu
Purpose. The aim of this course is not to consider policy as such but to examine
the ideas underpinning US foreign policy and informing the foreign policy debate.
Some (affirming) ideas inspire or explain or justify actually existing policy. Other
(dissenting) ideas call into question or challenge government actions and
priorities while advancing alternatives. The course takes a chronological
approach. It begins with the founding of Anglo-America and concludes with the
period since 9/11.
Throughout, we will examine the assigned readings to determine what they can
tell us about the following:
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The image and role of America;
The definition of U. S. national interests;
The image of the world as viewed by Americans;
The existing or proposed terms of the relationship between the United
States and the rest of the world.
Course Requirements.



Attendance / oral participation
Research Paper
Take-home final exam
20%
40%
40%
Essay. Each undergraduate student will write a full-fledged research paper on a
topic to be negotiated with the instructor. The essay will be approximately 20
pages long and will use primary sources. It will be due on Lesson 12.
Course Administration.



Students should bring to class the day’s assigned readings.
Attendance at all meetings of the course is required. Inform me if
circumstances will prevent you from coming to class.
Students are expected to submit written assignments on time. Late
submissions will be subject to penalties.
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Required Texts.
Randolph Bourne, War and the Intellectuals
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
George Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
Lesson 1. The Founding Tradition
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630),
http://www.kosmicki.com/234/cityhill.htm
Ezra Stiles, “The United States Elevated to Glory and Honor,” (1783),
http://www.belcherfoundation.org/united_states_elevated.htm
Alexander Hamilton, “The Federalist No. 11” (1787),
http://www.thevrwc.org/federalist/fedpap11.html
George Washington, “Farewell Address” (1797),
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
Lesson 2. The Young Republic
John Quincy Adams, “Speech of July 4, 1821,”
http://www.fff.org/freedom/1001e.asp
James Monroe, “The Monroe Doctrine” (1823),
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/monroe.asp
William Wirt, “The Triumph of Liberty in France,” (1830),
http://books.google.com/books?id=RIC5bPUQMWkC&printsec=frontcover
&dq=william+wirt+baltimore+1830&source=bl&ots=KCuVXjiSf&sig=OtjdJfMSzTDY5_FkNGYbS9pqMU4&hl=en&ei=6C3gS92gGMT68A
aKoZ2qBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AE
wAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Alexis de Tocqueville, “Conduct of Foreign Affairs by the American
Democracy,” Democracy in America, volume I, section XIII (1835),
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccerreldem?id=TocDem1.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/
modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=80&division=div2
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John L. O’Sullivan, “The Great Nation of Futurity” (1839),
http://www.civics-online.org/library/formatted/texts/manifest_destiny.html
John L. O’Sullivan, “Annexation” (1845),
http://web.grinnell.edu/courses/HIS/f01/HIS20201/Documents/OSullivan.html
Walt Whitman, “A Broadway Pageant” (1860),
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/wwhitman/bl-ww-broadway.htm
Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” and “Second Inaugural”
Lesson 3. Expansionists
John Fiske, “Manifest Destiny,” (1880/1885), http://anglais.uparis10.fr/IMG/doc/John_Fiske_Lecture_in_London.doc
Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885), selections,
http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/107/110026/ch18_a3_d2.pdf
Alfred Thayer Mahan, “The United States Looking Outward,”
Atlantic Monthly (December 1890),
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/the-united-stateslooking-outward/6348/2/
Albert Beveridge, “The March of the Flag” (1898),
http://www.historytools.org/sources/beveridge.html
Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899)
Albert Beveridge, “In Support of an American Empire (1900),
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ajb72.htm
Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American
History” (1893),
http://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/corporations/docs/turne
r.htmlhttp://www.learner.org/workshops/primarysources/corporations/docs/
turner.html
Lesson 4. Anti-Imperialism and Its Aftermath
Mark Twain, “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” North American Review
(February 1901), http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/twain.htm
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William Graham Sumner, “On Empire and the Philippines” (1898),
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:q3Xa5lkZzo8J:w
ww1.gcs.k12.al.us/~sfraser/Fraser%2520Webpage/APUS/William%2520G
raham%2520Sumner.doc+william+graham+sumner+%22empire+and+the
+philippines%22&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Andrew Carnegie, “America versus Imperialism” (January 1899),
http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pagevieweridx?c=nora;cc=nora;rgn=full%20text;idno=nora0168-1;didno=nora01681;view=image;seq=00005;node=nora0168-1%3A1
Jane Addams, “Democracy or Militarism” (April 30, 1899),
http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/jwb/ap/Progressives/Addams.htm
Finley Peter Dunne, “Expansion” (1899),
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13784/13784-h/13784-h.htm#expansion
John Hay, “First Open Door Note” (September 6, 1899),
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_First_%27Open_Door_Note%27
The Platt Amendment (May 22, 1903),
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/print_friendly.php?flash=true&page=transcri
pt&doc=55&title=Transcript+of+Platt+Amendment+%281903%29
Theodore Roosevelt, “Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine”
(December 6, 1904),
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=56&page=transcrip
t
Theodore Roosevelt, “Inaugural Address” (March 4, 1905),
http://www.nationalcenter.org/TRooseveltInaugural.html
William James, “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1906),
http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/moral.html
William Howard Taft, “Dollar Diplomacy” (1912),
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/taft2.htm
Lesson 5. Wilson and World War I
Woodrow Wilson, ”Speech in Philadelphia,” (May 10, 1915),
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65388
Woodrow Wilson, “The First Lusitania Note” (May 13, 1915),
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Wilson%27s_First_Lusitania_Note_to_Ge
rmany
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Woodrow Wilson, “Democracy of Business” (July 10, 1916),
http://books.google.com/books?id=CAKeocTgE00C&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&d
q=wilson+detroit+democracy+of+business&source=bl&ots=WEGGtPyy1&sig=z4GtiRVCdXG1VCpPK1_vOCiZSQ&hl=en&ei=vhThSp_9O8m8Aal05ilDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CA0Q6AEw
AA#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Woodrow Wilson, “Peace Without Victory” (January 22, 1917),
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ww15.htm
Woodrow Wilson, “War Message” (April 2, 1917),
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Wilson%27s_War_Message_to_Congress
Randolph Bourne, The War and the Intellectuals, pp. 3-104.
George Norris and Robert LaFollette, Speeches in opposition to US entry
into the European war (1917),
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/doc19.htm
Eugene Debs, “Canton, Ohio Anti-War Speech” (June 16, 1918),
http://www.isreview.org/issues/20/debs_canton.shtmlhttp://www.isreview.o
rg/issues/20/debs_canton.shtml
Woodrow Wilson, “The Fourteen Points” (January 8, 1918),
http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/President_Wilson%27s_Fourteen_Points
Woodrow Wilson, “League of Nations Speech” (1919),
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ww38.htm
Woodrow Wilson, “Pueblo, Colorado Speech” (September 26, 1919),
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/wilsonleagueofnations.htm
Lesson 6. Interwar Critics
Communist Party USA, “Fundamentals of the Party” (July 1935),
http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/cpusa/1935/07/organisersmanual/ch01.htm
Harry Elmer Barnes, “The World War of 1914-1918,”
http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/barnesww1.shtml
Twelve Southerners, I’ll Take My Stand (1930), Introduction,
http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA01/White/anthology/agrarian.html
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Charles Lindbergh, “Neutrality and War” (1939) and “Our Relationship with
Europe” (1940),
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech3.asp
Charles Lindbergh, “The Des Moines Speech” (1941),
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/americanfirst/speech.asp
Charles A. Beard, “Giddy Minds and Foreign Quarrels,” (1939),
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1507
Lesson 7. The Summons
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Chautauqua Speech” (August 14, 1936),
http://www.academicamerican.com/twentiesdepww2/worldwar2/docs/FDR
Chautauqua.html
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat” (December 29, 1940),
http://www.mhric.org/fdr/chat16.html
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The Four Freedoms” (January 6, 1941),
http://usinfo.org/facts/speech/fdr.html
Henry Luce, “The American Century” Life (February 17, 1941)
Walter Lippmann, U. S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic (1943)
Lesson 8. Cold War (I)
George Kennan, “The Long Telegram” (February 22, 1946),
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm
X [George F. Kennan], “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs
(July 1947)
George Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950 (1951)
NSC 68: “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security”
(April 14, 1950), http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/nsc68.htm
“USA: The Permanent Revolution,” Fortune (February 1951),
http://www.archive.org/stream/usathepermanentr002636mbp/usatheperm
anentr002636mbp_djvu.txt
Lesson 9. Cold War (II)
Reinhold Neibuhr, The Irony of American History
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Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center: The Politics of Freedom
(1949), http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/vital-center.html
C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite
Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Farewell Address to the Nation” (January 1961)
J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (1966), excerpt,
http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/study_res/usa/fulbright_2usa.htm
Lesson 10 A Third Way?
Graham Greene, The Quiet American
W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist
Manifesto (1960), http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/ipe/rostow.htm
“The Port Huron Statement” (1962), http://www.hnet.org/~hst306/documents/huron.html
Martin Luther King, “Declaration of Independence from the War in
Vietnam,” (April 1967), http://www.commondreams.org/views04/011513.htm
Lesson 11. Nuclear Strategy
Albert Wohlstetter, “Delicate Balance of Terror” (1958),
http://www.rand.org/publications/classics/wohlstetter/P1472/P1472.html
Dr. Strangelove, a film by Stanley Kubrick
The Pulsing Heart of SAC, US Air Force film,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb304/film03.htm
Airborne Alert, 1959 US Air Force film,
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb304/film01.htm
US Catholic Bishops statement on nuclear war (1983),
http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/TheChallengeofPeace.pdf
Ronald Reagan, “Star Wars Speech” (March 23, 1983),
http://pierretristam.com/Bobst/library/wf-241.htm
Lesson 12. Morning in America
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Jimmy Carter, “Malaise Speech” (July 15, 1979),
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3402
Ronald Reagan, “Time to Recapture Our Destiny” (July 17, 1980),
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3406
Ronald Reagan, “First Inaugural Address” (January 20, 1980),
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3407
Ronald Reagan, “Tear Down This Wall” (June 12, 1987),
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3415
Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest
(Summer 1989), http://www.wesjones.com/eoh.htm
Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs
(America and the World, 1990/1991), http://www.jstor.org/pss/20044692
Lesson 13. Post-Cold War Debate
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” Foreign Affairs
(Summer 1993),
http://history.club.fatih.edu.tr/103%20Huntington%20Clash%20of%20Civili
zations%20full%20text.htm
Robert Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,” The Atlantic Monthly
(February 1994),
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/02/the-cominganarchy/4670/
Thomas L. Friedman, “A Manifesto for the Fast World,” New York Times
Magazine (March 28, 1999),
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/28/magazine/a-manifesto-for-the-fastworld.html
William Kristol and Robert Kagan, ‘Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign
Policy,” Foreign Affairs (July / August 1996),
http://public.gettysburg.edu/~dborock/courses/Fall/p242/docs/w_kristol_r_
kagan-toward%20neo_reaganite%20foreign%20policy.pdf
William Kristol and Robert Kagan, “The Present Danger,” The National
Interest (March 2000),
http://www.newamericancentury.org/def_natl_sec_pdf_07.pdf
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Lesson 14. Impact of 9/11
George W. Bush, “Address to a Joint Session of Congress,” (September
20, 2001), http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/09.20.01.html
George W. Bush, “State of the Union Address” (January 29, 2002),
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/01.29.02.html
George W. Bush, “West Point Commencement Speech” (June 1, 2002),
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/06.01.02.html
George W. Bush, “Second Inaugural Address” (January 20, 2005),
http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/01.20.05.html
Norman Podhoretz, “World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, Why
We Have To Win,” Commentary (September 2004),
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/world-war-iv--howit-started--what-it-means---and-why-we-have-to-win-9785
Lesson 15. Dissent after 9/11
Immanuel Wallerstein, “The Eagle Has Crash Landed,” Foreign Policy
(July / August 2002), http://www.uni-muenster.de/PeaCon/global-texte/gm/n/wallerstein-eagle.htm
Andrew J. Bacevich, “Twilight of the Republic?,” Commonweal (December
1, 2006), http://commonwealmagazine.org/twilight-republic-0
Patrick Buchanan, “No End To War,” The American Conservative
(March 1, 2004), http://www.amconmag.com/3_1_04/cover.html
Peter Beinart, “A Fighting Faith,” The New Republic (December 2, 2004),
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1292836/post
Tom Englehardt, “When I’m Sixty-Four,” (July 31, 2008),
TomDispatch.com,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174962/bush_s_fierce_global_war_of_d
enial
Wendell Berry, “The Failure of War,” Yes! (Winter 2001-2002),
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1207-01.htm
Wendell Berry, “A Citizen’s Response to the National Security Strategy of
the United States of America” (March 2003),
http://www.quietspaces.com/wendellberry.html
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Stanley Hauerwas, “September 11, 2001: A Pacifist Response,”
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/mmedia/features/911site/hauerwas.html
Version of July 8, 2010
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